Good morning. Pressure is mounting on all sides to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, with rival peace proposals dividing negotiators in Washington, Kyiv and Moscow – more on that below, along with a home for the Hudson’s Bay charter and some holiday shopping help. But first:

• Carney taps Marc Miller as his culture minister in a cabinet shuffle
• Danielle Smith punts questions on health CEO Sam Mraiche’s election night appearance
• Trump’s halting of asylum claims prompts fresh calls to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement

Donald Trump is once again optimistic that he’ll broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. After an hours-long, high-level meeting on Sunday between U.S. negotiators and Ukrainian delegates, the U.S. President told reporters aboard Air Force One that the talks were “going along, and they’re going along well.” Then he added, “I think that there’s a good chance we can make a deal.”

Other officials were more circumspect. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’d been in the room with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, called the discussions “complicated” and “delicate,” and said there remained “much work to do.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pretty much lifted that language wholesale, posting on social media that there were “some tough issues that still have to be worked through.”

The trouble is that two duelling peace plans have now been tabled, one wildly tilted toward Russia’s demands, one better suited to Ukraine. The first – a 28-point proposal devised by Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin – forces Kyiv to cap the size of its military, promise never to join NATO, and surrender the southeastern Donbas region, including land it still controls. The second – whittled down to 19 points by Rubio and Ukrainian mediators – freezes the conflict on its current front lines, requires little change to military personnel, and kicks the troublesome NATO issue down the road.

Yesterday, the Rubio plan gained momentum as Zelensky shored up support from European allies in France. President Emmanuel Macron stressed that only Kyiv could make the decision to cede any of its territory. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – one of a dozen leaders who spoke yesterday with Zelensky by phone – said Europe had to be involved in the negotiations, and that there could be “no dictated peace” in Ukraine.

But now Witkoff is back in the spotlight, sitting down in Moscow today to brief Putin on ending the war. This is his sixth meeting with the Russian President since February – and his first since news broke last week that Witkoff had coached the Kremlin on how to sell their peace plan to Trump. According to a leaked Oct. 14 call obtained by Bloomberg, some of his advice was routine flattery stuff: congratulate Trump on his great success in Gaza; emphasize that he’s a real “man of peace.” Witkoff also told Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, that the two presidents should get on the phone before Zelensky visited Trump in D.C. And he said any peace deal would require Russia to gain control of Donetsk.

It looks like the Kremlin heeded Witkoff’s suggestions. On Oct. 16, Putin spoke with Trump for 2½ hours, a discussion the U.S. President described as “very productive.” The next day, in a tense White House meeting, Trump pressed Zelensky to surrender the entire Donetsk province, which Moscow has fought to take over for more than a decade. Russia scaled up its attacks in the region, deploying around 170,000 soldiers in Donetsk and capturing nine settlements and villages there in the four weeks that followed the Witkoff call.

But however much Russia may like to negotiate with Witkoff, it’s not remotely clear that today’s sit-down will yield a breakthrough in the nearly four-year war. Putin knows that Ukraine is on the back foot, losing ground on the eastern front lines while running low on money and troops. Its government is also mired in a US$100-million corruption scandal that has forced out two cabinet ministers and Andrii Yermak, Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, who led Ukraine’s peace negotiations until his resignation on Friday. Putin might not feel he’s under any pressure to play diplomatic ball.

Older men across Canada are struggling to navigate their isolation – but “social prescribing” can help ease that burden. Read more about the move for connection here.

At home: Ottawa reached a deal to join the European Union’s military purchasing fund – though the government declined to say how much it paid in membership fees.

Abroad: Hong Kong announced that next week’s elections will go ahead, even as anger mounts over the public housing fires that killed more than 150 people.